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Warnock (1978) Notes on the text
Appendices Appendix 1 List of contributors
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The Warnock Report (1978)
Special educational needs Report of the Committee of Enquiry into the education of handicapped children and young people London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office 1978
ISBN 0 10 172120 X
Chapter 19: Priorities and resources
INTRODUCTION 19.1 We were appointed in 1974 to review the full range of educational provision in Great Britain for handicapped children and young people. We started this report by pointing out that there had been no other comparable enquiry this century. The basic framework of provision that we were to review had stood for thirty years. 19.2 Against this background we saw our work as having two main features. We were to look at the present arrangements for special educational provision; and we were to point the direction of their future development. The first exercise was a necessary condition of the second. It seemed reasonable to think that there would not be another enquiry such as ours for many years to come and that we would therefore be looking well ahead in formulating our proposals. Our perspective therefore reaches to the end of the century and possibly beyond. With some important exceptions we have not set our proposals against a timescale for their fulfilment. Rather we have tried to produce a new framework within which the changes we recommend can take place progressively in step with resources. 19.3 We have throughout our work been acutely aware of the financial constraints on central and local government. Indeed, our terms of reference required us 'to consider the most effective use of resources'. We would stress that some of our proposals can be substantially achieved by redeployment of existing resources. Others are in line with present government policies for expansion, for example policies for an increase in nursery and further education provision. Further, many of the developments recommended in our report stem from Section 10 of the Education Act 1976, which Parliament enacted midway through our review. We assume that adequate resources will be made available for the implementation of present policies for expansion and of Section 10 itself. Nevertheless, we recognise that some of our key proposals will require substantial additional expenditure over the next few years and beyond. 19.4 We have not attempted to identify elements of net additional cost attaching to our different recommendations. Nor would it have been possible to do so. As we have made clear, the incidence of cost will be spread over future years, which will inevitably bring major changes in the commitment of educational resources. Moreover, any quantification of our recommendations in terms of their assumed additional cost over a selected period of time would have been entirely theoretical both in construction and result for two main reasons. First, information about the actual current cost of providing special education is incomplete. The difficulty of obtaining figures for the cost of special educational provision in special classes and units emerged very clearly from the survey conducted for us by the Department of Education and Science of the cost per place in different types of special schools, classes and units in nine local education authorities in England and Wales. Moreover, the figures obtained for special schools revealed a very wide range of costs in different schools*. Secondly, we have proposed a much broader framework of special education; and the cost of making provision within this framework is not known. In the circumstances we have thought it more helpful to pick out those of our recommendations which appear to us to have significant implications for resources. *Of the six authorities who returned information on the costs of placing children in special classes or units, five were unable to separate all the costs of the special classes or units from those of the ordinary schools to which they were attached. No conclusions could therefore be drawn about the cost of special classes or units. Information was returned by nine authorities about pupil costs in 152 maintained special schools. The costs in schools catering for pupils with the same type of disability differed enormously. For example, pupil costs in day schools ranged from £1,055 to £2,115 in schools for the physically handicapped, £568 to £1,343 in schools for the ESN(M) and £757 to £1,728 in schools for the ESN(S). Pupil costs in boarding special schools ranged, for example, from £1,946 to £5,117 in schools for the physically handicapped and from £1,399 to £3,015 in schools for the ESN(M). In some cases there was a wide range of pupil costs in special schools of the same type within the same authority. For example, in one authority the pupil costs in day schools for the ESN(M) ranged from £606 to £1,154 and in two others the costs in day schools for the ESN(S) ranged from £757 to £1,293 and from £880 to £1,728 respectively. 19.5 We naturally believe that the objectives set out in our report are important and should be pursued with all possible speed. The period since 1944 has been one of increasing educational expectations on the part of parents, children and young people. There have been major developments in all three stages of education - primary, secondary and further. The two-stage raising of the school leaving age, the elimination of all-age schools, the reorganisation of secondary education on comprehensive lines, the development of middle schools and tertiary colleges, the vast expansion and diversification of further and higher education have all consumed resources. We believe that the time is ripe for a comparable outlay on innovation in special education, in line with the growing demand from parents of children with special educational needs. 19.6 In another sense as well the time is favourable. Educational aspirations will undoubtedly remain high and, indeed, will continue to rise. We expect our report to contribute to this trend. While, however, the developments referred to above took place during a period when the school population was increasing, school rolls are at present falling and are likely to continue to do so for some years. The effects are largely concentrated at present in primary education, but they will in time pass on to secondary education, where the per capita savings will be greater, and then to further and higher education. These trends afford a unique opportunity for improvements in the quality and range of education services within the total funds devoted to them. We firmly hold, for all the reasons given in this report, that adequate resources can and should be made available for the improvements we have proposed in provision for children with special needs. Thus we see considerable scope for the early achievement of many of our objectives. 19.7 With this in mind we proceed to identify those of our recommendations which we think come first in order of priority; to comment on the timescale for the implementation of Section 10 of the Education Act 1976; and then to examine aspects of our main recommendations as they affect resources. The Education Act 1976 does not apply to Scotland: our main recommendations and the order of priority in which we place them below, however, hold equally for England, Scotland and Wales.
I PRIORITIES 19.8 We proposed in Chapter 3 a new conceptual framework within which special educational provision should be made. This entails a continuum of special educational need rather than discrete categories of handicap. It embraces children with significant learning difficulties and emotional or behavioural disorders as well as those with disabilities of mind or body. It is within this framework that our key proposals for the discovery, assessment and recording of special educational needs, the associated duties of local education authorities and the role of parents are set. This conceptual framework must be reflected in legislation. We urge that the necessary legislation should be introduced without delay and certainly within 18 months of the publication of our report. Even before legislation is enacted, however, there is a number of practical steps that can be taken to improve provision for children and young people with special educational needs. 19.9 Our report stresses the importance of early education for children with disabilities or significant difficulties and of increased opportunities for young people with these problems to continue their education after 16 at school or in further education. It is at these two ends of the age range that we believe improved provision to be most urgently required and it is here that our priorities begin. 19.10 If a close and, so far as possible, equal relationship between parents of children with special educational needs and professionals is established and if prompt and effective educational help for such children is provided as soon as their special needs become apparent, the whole of the children's subsequent education will benefit. The education service will also benefit, since early intervention will mean that many children will be less dependent upon support in later years and will be able to take their place in ordinary schools. In Chapter 5 we suggested a variety of ways of extending early educational opportunities for children with disabilities and educational difficulties including not only a substantial expansion of nursery education but also the encouragement of voluntary provision for young children below school age. 19.11 Provision for young people over 16 with special needs has in our view been badly neglected in the past. Many special schools do not cater for pupils over 16, and although in some areas there are increasing opportunities for them to continue their education in further education establishments, the present facilities are in general manifestly inadequate. As part of the implementation of Section 10 of the Education Act 1976 ordinary secondary schools will need to ensure that they provide a full range of opportunities for senior pupils who have special educational needs. Unless opportunities are available to young people to continue their education in special or ordinary schools, in colleges of further education or in other establishments in the range described in Chapter 10, all the earlier efforts made on their behalf may, as we indicated in that chapter, come to nothing. Conversely, good provision will pay dividends by enabling many of these young people to achieve much greater independence in adult life, with correspondingly less dependence on support from their families, statutory services or voluntary organisations. 19.12 These improvements in special educational provision for children under five and young people over 16 will not be achieved without the advances in teacher training which we have proposed. Advances in teacher training are equally essential to the progressive integration in ordinary schools of more children with disabilities, including some with severe and complex disablement, in accordance with Section 10, and to continuing effective provision in special schools. Thus we regard our proposals for the improved training of teachers as no less urgent than those for improved provision for children and young people. 19.13 We therefore urge that equal priority should be accorded to the three sets of our recommendations covering respectively provision for children under five with special educational needs, provision for young people over 16 with special educational needs and developments in teacher education and training. These are listed in more detail at the end of this chapter. 19.14 Although for present purposes we have marked out these three sets of recommendations as having priority over others, they cannot be entirely isolated. Their implementation is unlikely to be successful without the organisation by each local education authority of a unified special education advisory and support service to carry out the functions we have assigned to it. For this reason, and bearing in mind that in many cases the establishment of this service can be achieved substantially by the retraining and redeployment of existing staff, we look for the early appearance of the new service in all areas. Again, the early establishment of our proposed Special Education Staff College will be required to provide opportunities for those advisers who will be members of the local advisory and support service to improve their capabilities and meet colleagues in other professions. Equally important, the successful implementation of our three most pressing sets of recommendations demands increased recognition of special education as a challenging and intellectually satisfying activity for those engaged in it. In order to promote this recognition and thus enhance the quality of the provision we consider that no time should be lost in the development of research in special education along the lines we have suggested. We therefore urge universities and other establishments of higher education to take the initiative in promoting such research as quickly as possible. 19.15 As we have said, our three areas of first priority have additional significance in the light of Section 10 of the Education Act 1976, which is to come into force on a day to be appointed by the Secretary of State. In particular our proposed developments in teacher training are vital to the successful implementation of the principle of integrated educational provision. Our proposal for the organisation of advice and support in special education as a unified service was conceived substantially from the point of view of Section 10, and a great many of our other recommendations may be seen as different aspects of extending the capacity of ordinary schools to meet the special educational needs of children on an expanding scale. 19.16 It would be totally unrealistic to think that authorities will on the appointed day be ready to introduce immediate radical changes in the pattern of their provision for special education, and we do not think that this was ever the intention. We see the implementation of Section 10 taking place progressively over time, in step with the fulfilment of those conditions which we identified in Chapter 7 as being necessary. For this reason we do not attach undue significance to the appointment of any particular day for the introduction of Section 10. We have stated our view that it should not be introduced without comprehensive guidance to local education authorities by the Secretary of State. Given that Section 10 would be incorporated into the new legislative provisions that are needed to establish our new framework of special education we think it reasonable to expect that it would come into force within that framework. We are however convinced of the need for all authorities, in the light of Departmental guidance and in consultation with other local education authorities in their region and with health authorities, to draw up a long-term plan for special educational provision within which arrangements for individual schools, ordinary and special, will take their place. We think it important that the plans should be publicised locally so that parents and others affected by them may have opportunity to comment.
II RESOURCES 19.17 We have explained why we are not attempting to price our different recommendations, and we have stated our expectation that demographic trends will make it possible to do many things at no extra cost which in other circumstances would have required additional funds. There is one other factor which seems to us to bear directly upon the financial implications of our proposals. Many of our recommendations are as we have said directly related to implementation of the provisions of Section 10 of the Education Act 1976, which was enacted two years after we started our enquiry and confirmed the direction of much of the content of our report. In Chapter 7 we voiced our strong conviction that the necessary resources must be provided with which to implement the new provisions without detriment to the quality of special education. Parliament having willed the ends, we would expect the government to will the means. 19.18 On the basis of this approach we concentrate in the rest of this chapter on indicating the relationship of our main proposals to present government policy and in very broad terms the timing of their implementation. We first consider our recommendations for increased provision for children under five and young people over 16 and for a special education advisory and support service. We then proceed to deal in rather more detail with the resource implications of our recommendations for improved teacher training. Provision for children under five with special needs 19.19 Our proposals for increased provision for children under five with special needs have four main components: greater recognition and involvement of parents as educators; a substantial extension of nursery education for all children, since this would have the consequence that opportunities for nursery education for those with special needs would be correspondingly increased; an extension of peripatetic teaching services to cover all types of disability or disorder in young children; and the provision of professional help and advice from members of the various supporting services, including the proposed special education advisory and support service, to playgroups, opportunity groups, day nurseries and, above all, parents. (See recommendations 1, 10, 8, 14, 15 and 7 of Chapter 5*.) *The recommendations of each chapter are listed in the summary of recommendations which follows this chapter. 19.20 The government is committed to a continuing expansion of nursery education, particularly in areas of social and educational disadvantage. We welcome the attention given by the Department of Education and Science to the needs of handicapped children in allocating resources for nursery education in the 1978-79 building programme. We also strongly support the government's intention that because of declining numbers of pupils of school age provision for under-fives in school will cater for increasing proportions of three and four year olds, within a steady total number of places. (1) It is most important that accommodation which becomes available in primary schools as a result of the declining school population should be used for the purpose of nursery education. It follows that, assuming that the present system of local government financing continues, central government's calculations of relevant expenditure for the rate support grant settlements and the distribution formulae in future years should enable all authorities to use spare accommodation in this way. 19.21 Peripatetic teaching services will need to be considerably expanded and improved if they are to cover the range of handicapping conditions in children. These teachers will form part of the proposed special education advisory and support service. We envisage that many of them will be drawn from the staff of special schools. Some will be seconded to the advisory and support service for a limited period; others will be assigned to the service for varying proportions of their time. With the probable decline in the number of pupils in special schools, it should be possible to expand peripatetic teaching services for young children in most fields of disability and in most parts of the country through a redeployment of teaching staff rather than an increase in their numbers. 19.22 Playgroups, opportunity groups and day nurseries will continue to be an important form of provision for young children with special educational needs. We are supported in this view by a recent joint circular letter to local authorities and local health authorities from the Department of Health and Social Security and the Department of Education and Science. (2) The provision of support to these groups should be part of the work of peripatetic teachers as well as that of professionals in the health and social services. The expansion of the health visiting service planned by the government during the period up to 1980-81 (3) should make it possible for support for such groups by health visitors to be increased. We hope that members of other services will similarly be able to give more help in future, and we note with satisfaction the suggestion in the joint circular letter mentioned above that social services departments should consider designating a member of their staff to examine with local voluntary groups how support and guidance for playgroups would best be provided. We believe that the local education authority should also be involved in such discussions with voluntary groups. Provision for young people over 16 with special needs 19.23 The main improvements proposed in this report in the provision for young people over 16 with special educational needs are as follows: more opportunities for such young people to continue their education at school or in further education and to receive careers guidance; a variety of forms of further education provision to meet their needs, including support to enable them to take ordinary courses and, for those with more severe disabilities, special courses and facilities in a special unit in each region; a specifically educational element in adult training centres and other day centres; and the necessary financial support to enable them to undertake courses of further or higher education. (See recommendations 2-3, 5-6, 7-10, 15 and 27-28 of Chapter 10.) 19.24 The expansion of further education provision planned by the government over the next few years should afford considerable scope for improvements in provision for young people with special educational needs. As part of the education service's contribution to provision for unemployed young people, 10,000 non-advanced further education places are to be provided in England, Scotland and Wales by 1981-82, in addition to the increase in the number of students on such courses which is already included in the Education Departments' latest projections of student numbers. Moreover, it has been suggested to authorities that it would be particularly appropriate for them to improve their provision for the handicapped and to develop provision directed towards helping school leavers of low educational achievement and social competence, many of them deficient in the basic skills of literacy and numeracy. (4) 19.25 A number of the conditions identified in Chapter 10 for the effective development of further education provision for young people with special needs could be fulfilled without significant demands on resources. In particular, the coordinated approach by the local education authorities within each region which was advocated in that chapter calls for attention to planning rather than further expenditure. We recognise, however, that the effective support of students with special needs admitted to courses of further or higher education, whether ordinary, modified or special ones, will require substantial additional provision by the education, health and social services. In view of the high priority that we give to the development of special educational opportunities for young people we urge that the necessary resources in the form particularly of special equipment and professional help and advice should be made available to them without delay. (See recommendations 7-12 of Chapter 10.) Special education advisory and support service 19.26 The special education advisory and support service recommended in Chapter 13 is an integral part of the arrangements proposed in this report for children and young people with special needs. It might appear at first sight that the establishment of such a service will be an expensive undertaking. In practice, however, as we explained in Chapter 13, it would in most areas be made up substantially of existing advisers, advisory teachers and other specialist remedial teachers, reinforced by a number of practising teachers. We see no reason why the structure of the service should not be set up straight away and at a minimum cost through the reorganisation and, where necessary, retraining of existing staff. The service can thereafter be developed and improved over a period of years. Given the prospect of a continuing decline in the numbers of pupils in both special and ordinary schools and the consequent opportunities for redeployment of teaching staff, the resource implications of developing the service should be small. Teacher training 19.27 In addition to the inclusion of a special education element in all courses of initial teacher training, we proposed in Chapter 12 the development of three main types of in-service courses of teacher training: short courses on special educational needs of about one week's full-time study or its part-time equivalent to be taken by the great majority of serving teachers within the next few years; one-year full-time courses or their part-time equivalent leading to a recognised qualification in special education for teachers with a defined responsibility for children with special educational needs; and other short courses. of varying length on different aspects of special education. (See recommendations 2, 4, 7, 12, 19-20 and 22 of Chapter 12.) 19.28 There are about 500,000 full-time teachers in regular service in primary and secondary schools in Great Britain. Not all of them would be expected to take a short in-service course on children's special educational needs. For example, some will be approaching retirement or will have recently completed an initial or in-service course which contained a special education element. We may therefore assume that our concentrated programme of in-service training would be applicable to about four fifths of the teaching force in schools, or about 400,000 teachers. If the programme were spread over five years and took the form of one week's full-time study or its part-time equivalent we estimate that at least 200 additional lecturers would be required working full-time. If, as we propose, the courses were to be also available to teachers in establishments of further education, the number of lecturers required would rise to some 220. For a variety of reasons this is unlikely to be an exact figure but it provides an indication of the order of magnitude. Suitable accommodation would of course also need to be available. We would foresee no difficulty in using the services of these lecturers once the programme had been completed. For example, there should be wide scope for their absorption into the local advisory and support service or for their employment on other courses in special education. 19.29 The proposed one-year or part-time equivalent courses leading to a recognised qualification in special education would be taken by those teachers in special schools who had not already completed an additional year of special training and other teachers with a defined responsibility for children or young people with special educational needs, including teachers in charge of designated special classes or units, or resource centres or supporting bases in ordinary schools, peripatetic teachers of children with special needs and teachers in charge of special units in establishments of further education. We recommended in Chapter 12 that the provision of suitable courses and support from local education authorities for teachers to attend them should be so increased that possession of an additional recognised qualification can be made a requirement on teachers with a defined responsibility for teaching children with special educational needs as soon as possible. We hope that in practice all such teachers will have undertaken training leading to a recognised qualification within a decade. Whether this training is carded out on a full or part-time basis, it is clear that a very considerable increase in lecturing staff and in accommodation for courses in special education will be required particularly in England and Wales. We estimate that if the necessary number of teachers with an additional recognised qualification is to be achieved within ten years, the staff and resources devoted to the present one-year or part-time equivalent courses in special education will need to be at least quadrupled. 19.30 The other short courses for teachers proposed in Chapter 12 will vary very considerably in length and content. We would expect them to be organised largely by members of the special education advisory and support service and to make use of existing facilities. They should not, therefore, require the provision of a substantial number of additional lecturing staff or a significant increase in accommodation. 19.31 The fulfilment of our proposals for the development of teacher training, particularly for one-year or part-time equivalent courses leading to a recognised qualification in special education, will be frustrated unless local education authorities are willing to second those teachers who wish to study full-time and to support and encourage those who wish to do so part-time. Authorities for their part will need encouragement to do this. There may, of course, be major changes in future in the system of financing local government expenditure. Assuming, however, that the present system continues, we are convinced that a nationwide advance in teacher training on the lines we have proposed is unlikely to be achieved merely by including the costs in the calculation of relevant expenditure for rate support grant purposes. One possible solution might be to bring all this expenditure within the arrangements for inter-authority pooling; this might not however commend itself to authorities generally and we are not clear that it would be effective. Another possibility might be 'joint funding' with specific central government grants available to match local education authority approved expenditure in this area. However, most of us think that the only certain way of ensuring the release of teachers on the scale required would be through the payment of specifically earmarked central government grants to cover the whole costs. We recognise that this would be regarded by local authorities as a most unwelcome infringement of their powers to make local decisions according to local needs and circumstances within a broad national system of general grant. Nevertheless, given that the provision of opportunities for teachers with responsibility for children with special educational needs to take one-year or part-time equivalent courses leading to a recognised qualification is an essential part of our proposals for improving the quality of special education, we believe that very serious consideration must be given to the payment of 100 per cent specific grants to authorities for the secondment of such teachers to take courses leading to this qualification. 19.32 We accept that the requirements for additional lecturing staff, accommodation and secondment of teachers which our proposals for teacher training entail, and which existing Regulations in Scotland require, are very substantial and in other times might have seemed beyond attainment. Today, however, the availability of lecturers owing to the contraction of teacher training, the availability of spare accommodation and the availability of teachers all provide an opportunity to be seized. As we pointed out in Chapter 2 the government accepted over twenty years ago a recommendation of the National Advisory Council on the Training and Supply of Teachers that all intending teachers of handicapped children should take a full-time course of additional training. Our present proposals pick up this theme in the context of a new framework of special educational provision. Unless the present favourable opportunity is taken to improve the professional qualifications of teachers in special education and hence the quality of special education itself, we fear that the next twenty years may yet again be a period of unfulfilled hope. Research and development 19.33 Three of our main proposals for the promotion and coordination of research and development in special education call for direct or indirect government funding: the proposal that there should be at least one university department of special education in each region of the country; the proposed formation of a Special Education Research Group; and the proposed establishment of a Special Education Staff College. (See recommendations 1, 4 and 6 of Chapter 18.) The Special Education Staff College might in due course be funded jointly by central government and local education authorities. We firmly hold that government grants for the establishment and continuing support of these bodies could produce very considerable benefits not only for the staff engaged in special education but for the children receiving it.
CONCLUSION 19.34 We have discussed the financial and other implications of our different proposals and indicated those which seem to us to command particular priority. In urging that priority should be given to certain of our recommendations, however, we earnestly hope that none of the others will be overlooked or indefinitely postponed. We believe that they are all necessary for the development of the new concept of special education which we outlined in Chapter 1. 19.35 In concluding our report we must emphasise that organisational changes and additional resources will not be sufficient in themselves to achieve our aims. They must be accompanied by changes in attitudes. Special education must be seen as a form of educational activity no less important, no less demanding and no less rewarding than any other, and teachers, administrators and other professionals engaged in it must have the same commitment to children with special needs as they have to all other children. Nor will it be enough if these changes in attitudes are confined to people engaged in special education. Changes in attitude are also necessary on the part of the public at large. There must be a general acceptance of the idea that special education involves as much skill and professional expertise as any other form of education, and that, in human terms, the returns on resources invested in it are just as great. With these thoughts in mind we submit our report. We believe that it not only contains important practical proposals for improving the education of children and young people with special needs but will also, in itself, contribute to those changes in attitude which are essential if our aims are to be fully realised.
THREE AREAS OF FIRST PRIORITY 1. Provision for children under five with special needs (i) Greater recognition and involvement of parents, wherever possible, as the main educators of their children during the earliest years (Chapter 5, recommendation 1).2. Provision for young people over 16 with special needs (i) More opportunities for young people over 16 with special needs to continue their education at school or in further education and to receive careers guidance (Chapter 10, recommendations 5-6, 9 and 2-3).3. Teacher training (i) The inclusion of a special education element in all courses of initial teacher training (Chapter 12, recommendation 2). 
References (1) The Government's Expenditure Plans. Cmnd 6721 (HMSO 1977). (2) Local Authority Social Services Letter LASSL(78)1, Health Notice HN(78)5 DHSS, Reference No S47/24/013 DES, Coordination of services for children under five (25 January 1978). (3) Priorities in the health and social services. The way forward (HMSO 1977), p10. (4) DES Circular 10/77, Welsh Office Circular 165/77, Unemployed young people: the contribution of the education service (30 September 1977) and Scottish Education Department Circular 996 (7 October 1977). 
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